Jessica Biel: “It’s Time to Be Very, Very Bad”

I find Jessica Biel fascinating. I like to listen to every word she says, and I enjoy seeing new pictures of her. But then again, there was this guy I went to school with who would spend the whole day in the cafeteria, drinking Mr. Pibbs and watching anime at maximum volume on his laptop, and I found him fascinating too, so I’m not entirely sure that’s a compliment.

The thing is, Loud Anime Guy doesn’t do big interviews with widely distributed magazines, so I can’t talk about him all the time like I can with Jessica Biel, and don’t think that doesn’t devastate me, because it does. But since Jessica Biel just did an interview with W magazine, we’ll use that to heal these wounds, all right?

On The Goonies: I never identified with girls, and the cast was all boys. Girls were nervous about going into caves; they were scaredy-cats—and I wasn’t into that at all. I loved the idea of being with a crew and having an adventure. I was really interested in pits full of snakes.

On her childhood: We lived in Colorado, and my parents were outdoorsy mountain people. My father would always say, “Go out and don’t come back until you have something to show me.” Which meant he wanted me to come back with a scraped knee or an injury. When I went out to play, I felt like I’d better get hurt.

How she played with Barbies: I did, but it was always, “Let’s play sex with Barbies!” My Barbies were usually naked. Once, I took their heads off, cut their hair, drew on their short, spiky hair with some markers, then stuck the heads on Christmas lights. Every year, we’d string our tree with those Barbie heads. It looked demonic. My parents were so cool—they saw it as a form of self-expression.

On being a rebellious teenager during 7th Heaven: I cut my hair supershort and dyed it blonde. I had to apologize to Aaron Spelling [the producer] for doing that. He wasn’t happy. When I turned 17 or 18, a really obnoxious friend sent a stripper to the set. I had to apologize for that too. The show was all about family values, and they took that position seriously. I was always apologizing.

On being physical: I’ve always been physical. I have no concept of what life is like without physical activity.

On doing a fight scene with Kate Beckinsale: Fun—so fun! Our fight scene isn’t overtly sexy: just two trained fighters who happen to be women kicking the shit out of each other. It could be two dudes, but we just happened to have long hair and boobs and…other things [laughs]. Kate and I usually fight men in movies, and when you knock into a man, he doesn’t care. But every two seconds, Kate and I were saying, “I’m so sorry—are you okay?” We were both so nervous about fighting another woman. Which is strange, because I have no problem fighting with a guy. In truth, I like doing anything that requires breaking a sweat.

On having a healthy outlook on life: I think I need to destroy my reputation. This whole I’m outdoorsy, I’m really healthy—it’s too squeaky-clean [laughs]. That’s going to be my new thing: Go dark and unhealthy. It’s time to be very, very bad.

Generally, women who say stuff like that think they’re super awesome and super hot, and therefore assume other women are jealous of them and/or don’t like them based on that alone. Saying “I’ve never really gotten along with girls” is just another way to say “Girls are always so jealous of me so they never want to be friends”.

she said she never “identified” with girls. and referenced a movie. i would agree that growing up i generally didnt identify with the hollywood adolescent girl. i have plenty of girlfriends, but i didnt act like a lot of girls in film. she is pictured around women all the time.

Jeeze, I wanted to punch her in the face the whole time I was reading that. I have a feeling she ‘never identified with girls’ because girls just never wanted to be around her because she’s so prententious and annoying.

i love her. i always have. i like that she is quiet and keeps her shit on the dl. it has never seemed to faze her that she has that kind of reputation. she just does what she wants without shoving our face in it. she is one of those people that show how clearly you can not win in hollywood. youre either a party girl or “boring”.